KUCHING: More than 100 people attended a public seminar titled ‘The Fascinating Nanoworld!’ organised by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Malaysia Sarawak and IEEE Swinburne Sarawak Student Chapter at Swinburne’s Sarawak Campus recently.
The participants comprised students from various secondary schools and universities including Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas), Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM), Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus, Lodge International School, Borneo International School and Tunku Putra International School.
Professor Sow Chorng Haur from the National University of Singapore gave a talk and presented fun-filled demonstrations on nanoscience and nanotechnology.
According to a press release from Swinburne, Nanoscience studies the world with objects that have extremely small dimensions, which are normally invisible to the naked eye.
Many scientists strive to understand nanoscience in order to manipulate and understand matter at a molecular level, especially to create artificial structures.
Despite making very small changes at the molecular level, these structures exhibit novel and surprisingly improved mechanical, chemical, electrical, optical and biological properties due to their nanoscopic size.
During his talk, Professor Sow piqued the curiosity of the audience through topics addressing five main questions namely “What is nanoscale?”, “Why nanoscience?”, “What are the applications of nanotechnology?”, “How do you manipulate nanoscale objects?”, and “How do you make structures of nanomaterials?”
Among the highlights of the seminar were several interesting demonstrations aimed to illustrate the concepts discussed.
In one demonstration, Professor Sow presented a seemingly ‘magic’ trick by making matchsticks jump while merely holding them. He explained how it was achieved on the nanoscale level given the rough edges of the matchsticks.
In a separate presentation, he employed the use of a hammer to smash an ice block to demonstrate how brittle it was.
Another similar frozen block was brought out but this time with tissue within it which withstood every blow thrown at it.
He explained that this was possible due to the way the molecules interact with one another which can affect their mechanical attributes and strength.
Through the seminar, Professor Sow showed how research could be a very fun prospect with countless possibilities to try out.
The participants were not only introduced to the concepts of nanoscience, but also recognised the significance of science and engineering.
